Maretropolis

Applejack slipped on her meter maid uniform, which was a traffic-enforcement hat and a bright orange vest, and went out to her parking cart.

It was a small, three-wheeled vehicle, painted black and white, with “Frequent Stops” printed on the back and a little red and blue light on the roof.

She climbed in, buckled up, turned the key in the ignition, moved the shifter to Drive, pressed the gas pedal down and took off... very slowly.

Applejack’s wide eyes searched everywhere as she drove down the street. Her face lit up as she slammed on the brake after spotting a parking meter that had just expired.

She parked in front of the car and slipped a ticket the under the windshield wiper just as another meter beeped and the “Expired” tab popped up.

Each time one dinged, Applejack dashed over and wrote a ticket. Her eyes and ears on full alert, she worked nonstop, ticketing vehicles of every kind.

She checked a nearby clock and stopped her ticket machine.

“Two hundred tickets before noon!” she said proudly.

She sighed as she turned to see her own vehicle parked at an expired meter, having incurred a penalty.

“Two hundred and one,” she said with a self-satisfied smile as she wrote herself a ticket.

Suddenly, the sound of a car horn and a very angry driver yelling interrupted her moment.

Applejack turned and looked across the street to see a van pull out of a garage just as a young man was crossing in front of the garage door.

“Watch where you’re going, Dragon!” the driver yelled out her window.

Applejack gasped at the sight of a young man roughly her own age, with spiked green hair, and eyed him suspiciously. The first thing she noticed was how good-looking he was. He was not handsome like a movie star, but he wasn’t ugly either. He was about six-two, maybe one-ninety, and he was fashionably dressed. He was wearing a white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, under a mulberry vest, with black slacks, a black tie, and black leather shoes.

She remembered that the very first half-dragon hybrids had scales of vibrant colors that matched the colors of their dragon kin. But after looking this guy over, it seemed that generations of interbreeding had phased out most of the distinct, outward characteristics. At least to the untrained eye.

Then Applejack shook her head and scolded herself for being suspicious without reason.

But when she saw the young man glance left, then glance right, she watched as he slinked into the Crystal Empire Ice Cream Parlor.

Suspicious again, and this time with reason, Applejack scampered across the street and peeked through the window of the shop. But the young man with the green hair was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’d he go?” she whispered.

Applejack opened the door and walked into the café as one of the servers scooped ice cream and dumped it into a small sundae glass. He scooped into a pile of peanuts and slapped them on top of the ice cream, skipping the whipped cream, ending with a cherry on top.

Applejack looked around the ice cream parlor. It was small, but bright and clean. Brand-new, built to resemble a typical dwelling in the Crystal Empire (the kingdom it was named after). The ceiling was high, the floor was tiled, and the leather seats of the booths were maroon.

There were eleven customers already eating: three couples, a mom and a dad with their daughter, and two singles (one man and one woman). Two servers were working behind the counter and the owner was working the register.

Applejack spotted the young man with green hair at the front of the line and the owner, Mustafa Combe, was speaking to him.

Mustafa looked particularly perturbed.

“Listen, I don’t know what you’re doing skulking around during daylight hours,” he said, “but I don’t want any trouble in here. So, hit the road!”

Applejack unsnapped the holster on her belt containing the can of Dragon Repellant as she peered at the young man with the green hair.

He was a tall guy, that was for sure. Not as big as her brother Macintosh, but if he was a Dragon hybrid, he would probably be just as strong. And able to breathe fire, as most Dragon hybrids could.

“I’m not looking for trouble either, sir. I just want to buy a Jumbo Pop,” the young man replied, reaching behind himself, “for my sons.”

Applejack stopped and noticed a pair of adorable little boys clinging to the young man’s legs. One had opal eyes and wavy dark blue hair, and was wearing a light blue Greek-like toga and sandals. The other looked almost the same, except his eyes, hair and toga were different shades of violet.

“You want the red or the blue, boys?” the green-haired man asked his sons.

The boys waddled up to the counter and both pointed to the red popsicle while Applejack, feeling awful for jumping to conclusions, clipped her Dragon Repellant holster shut.

“Aw... I’m such a...” she whispered to herself as she turned to leave.

“Back up,” Mustafa Combe said to the boys. He turned to the green-haired young man again and asked, “What? There aren’t any Dragon ice cream joints in your part of town?”

Applejack stopped and turned to look at the men again. Some of the customers turned to look at them, too.

“Oh, no, there are. It’s just, my boys,” the young man tousled their hair. “These adorable little guys, they’re Crystals, like you. Now, could we go somewhere else? Sure. But we have come here because I want to help them learn about their heritage. And I am not going to crush their dreams. Do you want to be the one to crush their dreams, huh?”

“Look, you obviously can’t read, Dragon, so allow me the pleasure,” Mustafa Combe said, as he picked up a little sign that had been sitting on the counter next to the cash register. “‘We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone!’ So, beat it!”

“You’re holding up the line!” said an elderly woman, waiting behind them.

The little boy in blue looked as if he was about to cry.

“Uh, excuse me,” Applejack interrupted as she marched up to the counter. “Howdy.”

Spike turned and looked at her.

He had seen her across the street as soon as he stepped out of the way of the open garage door. It would have been hard not to. His glance had flicked to his right and he had seen her quite clearly. Seen her react. Seen her stop, thereby identify herself as an opponent. Maybe even a threat. But what kind?

She was a fine-looking woman. Tall and lean and young, with blonde hair pulled back in an athletic ponytail, freckles, beautiful green eyes, a face that had seen plenty of summer sun and winter wind, and she was in full uniform. A cop. But her tan, slightly Southern accent and country drawl gave her away.

A farmgirl.

Spike wanted to look at her nameplate over her bulletproof vest, but he didn’t want her to think he was looking at her breasts. And as he was watching her, and those beautiful eyes of hers, he thought that it was all a false front.

His impression was reinforced when Mustafa Combe spoke to her.

“Hey, you’re gonna have to wait your turn like everyone else, meter maid!” Mustafa told her.

“Actually, I’m an officer,” she said as she flashed her badge. “Just a quick question for ya. Are yer customers aware that they’re getting viruses, bacteria, and who know what else with their cookies and cream?”

A customer at one of the tables spat out his ice cream.

“What are you talking about?” Mustafa asked, annoyed.

“Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but unless I’m mistaken, I believe scooping ice cream with ungloved hands is a class-three health-code violation. No matter how many times you may wash and sanitize them,”

Mustafa looked back at his servers, who were wiping their hands on their aprons and looking guilty.

“Which I’d say is kind of a big deal,” AJ went on. “Now, I’d be more than happy to let ya off with a warning if ya would just glove up yer hands and finish selling this nice gentleman and his sons a... What was it?”

“A Jumbo Pop,” Spike said, smiling. “Please.”

“A Jumbo Pop. Please,” Applejack repeated firmly.

Mustafa sighed loudly and said, “Fifteen dollars.”

“Thank you so much,” the young father said. “And thank you,” he told Applejack. “Fifteen big ones coming right up.”

He dug through his pockets before stopping in disbelief.

“Oh, no. Are you kidding me? I don’t have my wallet. I’d lose my head if it wasn’t attached to me,”

He got to one knee to look his sons in the eye.

“I’m sorry, guys. Got to be about the worst birthday ever. Please don’t be mad at me,”

He leaned down to give his sons each a kiss on the forehead before he got to his feet. He took their hands, looked at Applejack and said, “Thanks for trying.”

As the young man led his sons to the door of the shop, Applejack was reminded of her father and older brother.

On hot summer days, Big Mac and Bright Mac would go to the ice cream shop in the poor part of town and buy every child they saw an ice cream cone. The way they went through life inspired Applejack to think of others and how much she could help them; even if it was just holding the door open for them.

Applejack reached into her pocket, slapped some cash on the counter and said to Mustafa, “Keep the change.”

After Mustafa gave them the Jumbo Pops, Applejack held the door as the young father and his sons exited the ice cream parlor.

“Officer, I don’t know what to say. Can I pay you back?”

“Oh, no, my treat. It just... it burns my butt to see people with such backwards attitudes toward Dragons. I just want to say you’re a great dad and a really great guy,”

“Well, that is very high praise,” he replied modestly. “It is rare that I meet a human being who is so non-patronizing. Officer...?”

“Smith,” she said, tipping her hat, not catching the sarcasm that was evident in the hybrid’s tone. “Applejack Smith. Mister...”

“Drake. Spike Drake,” he replied, shaking her hand.

Applejack bent down toward the little boys.

“And you, little guys,” she said. “You want to be Crystals when you grow up? You be Crystals. Or, if you want to be Dragons like your pa here, then be Dragons, because this is Maretropolis. Anyone can be anything.”

She placed MPD badge stickers on their chests and they smiled up at her.

“Ah, I tell them that every day,” Spike said, handing them the huge Jumbo Pops. “All right, here you go. Both hands. Both hands. Oh, look at those smiles. Those are ‘happy birthday’ smiles. Now, what do we say to the nice lady?”

“Thank you!” they both said in sweet, little voices.

“Bye, now!” Spike added.

“Goodbye!” Applejack said happily.

The three left and Applejack returned to her job with a spring in her step.

A little while later, as Applejack was writing her 262nd ticket in Celestia Square, she spotted the two Crystal boys a few blocks away. She started toward them but stopped when she realized what they were doing.

They were standing under a rain gutter, collecting red liquid into a series of jars. Meanwhile, up on the roof above them, the young man with green hair, Spike Drake, was letting Popsicle liquid drip down the gutter.

They were melting the giant Jumbo Pops she had bought for them!

Applejack furrowed her brow as she watched Spike discard the empty sticks, slide down the pipe, and carry the full jugs into the back of a waiting van.

Her eyes nearly fell out of her head when she watched them drive away. The boy in violet was in the driver’s seat, behind the wheel!

Shocked, confused and suspicious, Applejack followed the van North, into the coldest section of Maretropolis—snowy uptown. Taking cover behind a snow bank, Applejack saw the little boy in blue transform into a wolf pup and started laying pawmarks in the snow with his little paws. The other boy laid a Popsicle stick down into each mold, and then Spike filled each one with the juice from the melted Jumbo Pops to create dozens of smaller popsicles.

Applejack followed them again, this time to downtown. She watched from a road bridge and saw Spike wheel a cart of the paw-shaped popsicles for sale at marked-up prices.

As the clock struck five, the suited employees of the Maretropolis Bank filed out of the building in a single straight line.

“Popsicles!” Spike called. “Get your popsicles!”

One employee spotted Spike, and the others followed him. In an instant, the frozen treats were completely sold out!

The bankers gnawed at their popsicles and tossed the sticks into the nearby recycling bins. After they had all gone, the small door from the first bin opened, and the two curly-haired boys—who, Applejack realized, were not a pair of adorable Crystal toddlers but a pair of Changeling shapeshifters named Thorax and Pharynx—stepped out, pulling three trolleys behind them, laden with the used, pink stained sticks, which they and Spike loaded into their van. Applejack scowled as she observed their operation.

She continued to follow Spike, Thorax and Pharynx to Little Breeziea, where the three men stopped at a construction site and plopped bundles of used sticks in front of a Breezie construction worker.

“Lumber delivery,” Spike said.

“What’s with the color?” the foreman asked.

“The color? Can’t you tell? That’s red wood,” Spike answered.

Applejack growled as the construction workers hauled the sticks away and Spike accepted his payment. Later, Spike handed Thorax and Pharynx their share of the profit for their work.

“Thirty-nine and forty. There you go. Good work today, buddies,” Spike said. “What? No kiss bye-bye for daddy?” he asked jokingly as Pharynx hopped into his van, slamming the door behind him.

“You kiss me tomorrow, and I will bite your face off!” He whipped on a pair of shades and drove off. “Ciao!”

As Pharynx and Thorax drove away, Applejack appeared in front of Spike, her face burning with anger.

“Well, I stood up for you, and you lied to me. You liar!”

“It’s call a hustle, Sugar,” the Dragon replied coolly. “And I’m not the liar, here. He is,” he said, pointing her gaze down the street.

Applejack turned but saw no one there. When she turned back around, Spike was gone. Then she spotted him as he disappeared around a corner at the other end of the street.

“Hey!” she exclaimed, running to catch up to Spike as he strolled along. “All right, Slick, you’re under arrest.”

“For what, dare I ask?”

“Oh, I don’t know. How about selling food without a permit, transporting undeclared commerce across borough lines, and false advertising?”

“Permit, receipt of declared commerce,” Spike said as he showed her his documentation, “and I did not falsely advertise a thing. Have a nice day.”

“You told that Breezie the Popsicle sticks were redwood!”

“Why, yes, I did,” Spike said smugly. “‘Red wood,’ with a space in between, implying, if not stating the fact, ‘that the wood is red.’ You can’t touch me, Sugar. I’ve been doing this sort of thing since I could walk.”

“You better stop calling me Sugah,”

“I’m sorry, really I am. I just naturally assumed that you came from some little apple-choked Podunk, am I wrong?”

“Uh, no!” she replied, as if to say, ‘obviously not.’ “I grew up in Ponyville.”

“All right, stop me if this story doesn’t sound familiar,” Spike told her. “A naïve little hick from the sticks with good grades and big ideas decides one day, ‘Hey, look at me everybody, I’m gonna move to the big city where humans and hybrids live in harmony and sing “Kumbaya”!’ Only to find out, after she gets there, oh, that’s right, we still don’t get along. Boom. And that dream of becoming a big city cop? Second boom. She’s a meter maid. And boom number three, no one cares about her or her dreams. And sooner or later, those dreams die and our heroine sinks into an emotional and literal squalor living in a box under a bridge until finally she has no choice but to go back home with her cute little ponytail between her legs to become... You’re from Ponyville, is that what you said? And you have the word ‘apple’ in your name... So how about an apple farmer? That sound about right?”

Applejack stood speechless for a moment, surprised that he had figured her out so quickly. Then she scowled at being outfoxed.

“Careful,” Spike warned as a passing pedestrian almost knocked her down. “Or it won’t be just your dreams that’ll be getting crushed!”

“Hey! Hey!” Applejack shouted as she ran in front of him. “No one tells me what I can or can’t be! Especially not some jerk who never had the gumption to try to be anything more than a Popsicle hustler!”

“Look. Everyone came to Maretropolis believing that after they did, they could do whatever the Tartarus they wanted. Well, newsflash: you. Can’t!” he stated. “You can only be what everyone else sees you as: evil Dragon,” he said, pointing to himself. Then he pointed to her. “Dumb, blonde bimbo.”

“I am not a dumb. Blonde. Bimbo,” she stated.

“Yeah, and that’s not wet cement you just stepped in,” he said, pointing to the ground before walking away.

Applejack looked down to see that she was ankle-deep in freshly poured concrete.

“You will never be a real cop,” Spike said softly. “You make a great meter maid, though. Maybe a supervisor one day. Just hang in there...”

Applejack sighed in dismay. Frustrated, she watched Spike walk off. Then she set about pulling her boots out of the cement.

Applejack returned her vehicle to the MPD, fed up at being hustled by Spike. Forty-five minutes later, she was home. A long, slow trip. She dragged her feet across the welcome mat outside her apartment, the soles of her boots still rock-hard. Then she unlocked the door, opened it, and looked in to the gloomy little room, her ponytail tucked behind her back.

She closed the door behind her, tossed her ticket pad and cellphone onto her desk, and turned on the radio. Sad songs filled the air as she changed stations until she stopped on some soft piano music.

After that, she dragged herself over to the kitchen, popped a Dinner for One into the microwave and watched it heat up. Once it was done, she peeled open the cover, revealing a tiny steak, some mashed potatoes, and a mix of vegetables.

Just one of the many things she hated: portions that were too small. Especially for a young woman who had the appetite of a full-grown stallion.

She sat down and groaned as she dropped it into the trashcan. Then her cellphone started ringing.

She picked up the phone and saw that it was her parents calling for a video chat. She shook her head and sighed before she tapped the answer button and put on a wide smile.

“Oh, hey, it’s my family,” she said, trying to sound upbeat.

“Oh, there she is!” said Buttercup. “Hi, sweetheart!”

Big Macintosh’s head popped into the screen.

“Hey there, AJ,” he said.

“How was your first day on the force?” Bright Mac asked.

“Great. It was great,” said AJ, knowing that was a complete lie.

“Use the Dragon Repellant?” Grand Pear asked.

“No, Grandpa,” she replied.

“Although I came close,” she added in thought, thinking back to the events in the ice cream parlor earlier that day.

“Everything you ever hoped?” Buttercup asked. “You really feel like you’re making the world a better place?”

“Eeyup. Absolutely. And more. Everyone’s so nice and I feel like I’m really making a difference,”

Her father saw right through her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I’m fine,”

“You are not fine. You’re lying to me,”

Applejack had inherited her father’s honesty. He could read her like a book.

“I’m good, it’s just--I’m just tired,”

“Wait a second,” Apple Bloom interrupted, peering into the screen. “Applejack, are you a meter maid?”

Applejack had forgotten she was still wearing her vest and her uniform’s hat was hanging on the back of the chair.

“What? Oh, this? No! No. This is just a temporary thing,”

“It’s the safest job on the force!” Buttercup exclaimed happily.

“Oh, she’s not a real cop!” Grand Pear sighed in relief. “Our prayers have been answered! Oh, meter maid! Meter maid! Meter maid! Meter maid!” he chanted, overjoyed.

“Grandpa. Grandpa. Grandpa!” Applejack shouted, feeling uncomfortable and wanting the conversation to end. “It’s been great, guys, but it’s been a really long day. I should--”

“That’s right, you get some rest,” Buttercup said.

“Those meters aren’t gonna maid themselves,” Bright Mac added.

“Bye-bye,” they all said.

“Buh-bye,” AJ said as she hung up, feeling even sadder than she had before.

She flopped back into her chair as she took off her vest. Then she heard her phone vibrate.

It was a text message from Granny Smith.

“We all love you, honey,” it read. “Don’t think that we didn’t think you’d make it. You’re just doing something I never thought one of my grandkids could do. I guess all you needed was a chance to prove yourself. We’re so proud of you.”

Applejack smiled. Her Granny always knew what to say.

Suddenly, through the wall, Lyra yelled, “Hey, will you turn down that depressing music?”

Forgetting that she had left her radio on, Applejack turned it off.

“Hey, leave the meter maid alone!” Bon Bon shouted. “Didn’t you just hear her conversation? She’s had a horrible day!”

“Oh, shut up!” Lyra shouted.

“You shut up!” Bon Bon shouted back.

“You shut up!”

“You shut up!”

“Tomorrow’s another day,” Applejack groaned quietly to herself.

“Yeah, but it might be worse!” Lyra shouted through the wall.

Exhausted, Applejack settled in for the night, wondering what tomorrow would bring.